FAQ

Most Simply: Our app is better than the built-in Confluence functionality.

Confluence itself doesn't have true announcements support. Instead, it exposes a common header and footer element that an admin can set. The header (and footer) element however only supports basic markup without any additional functionality.

In comparison, the Simple Announcement addon allows having multiple announcements active, scheduling of announcements, as well as easily changing the visuals.

Additionionally, the way Confluence currently shows the header can be a bit confusing, as it shows beneath the breadcrumb of a page, thus making it look like the announcement is actually part of the page itself, instead of being separate

Once installed, the app adds a new administrative section to manage announcements. Aadministrators are allowed to create announcements in the app.

These announcements will then show up as a popup dialog the first time a Confluence users sees an announcement.

Once a user dismisses an announcement, the same announcement won't show again, unless it's changed.

No, and for the foreseeable future that is unlikely to change.

Unfortuntately, that's the way Atlassian handles all licensing.

Regardless of how many users need an app, you end up having to pay for all users in your Confluence Cloud instance. This behavior is enforced on the Atlassian side, and outside of our control.

Absolutely Not!.

You simply pay for the amount of Confluence users your Confluence instance has. Public users do not figure into this scenario at all.

Of course!

We are always looking for ways to improve our apps, and the best way to do that is with your input.

Don't hesitate to email us at support@tss.io, and let us know about it.

Not at all. Simple Announcements uses the same editor Confluence Cloud uses, albeit with more limited functionality. Authoring Announcements is pretty much the same as writing content in Confluence page.

At the moment: no.

Note: this is not a feature currently on our roadmap.

At the moment: no. It is something we are actively investigating however.

Nope. Once an announcement is deleted it is gone forever.

Not much, except recreate it. While we store previous version of announcements to keep track of read receipts, we don't have any functiaonlity to roll-back and announcement to previous version.

Not yet.

Announcements are currently shown to everyone.

We have plans to add more specific targeting of announcements, which would include limiting announcements to specific projects, users, user groups, or even issue types. It's something on our roadmap, but without a concrete delivery date.

Not really.

Global announcements display on all page, and we intentionally prevent users from disabling the app in specific spaces, as that would defeat the purpose of the app. We are however going to add the ability for announcements to only target specific spaces.

That is up to you.

Generally, when updating an announcement, we reset all read receipts, so users see the announcement again even if they have previously acknlowedged it.

We understand however that sometimes you simply want to fix a typo or other error you've made, so when saving an announcement you can choose to prevent creating a new version, which would prevent read receipts from being reset.

Yes. When saving an announcement, we automatically create a new version of the announcement, which automatically resets all read receipts for that announcement. Simply leave the checkbox to prevent creating a new version unchecked when saving.

No. You can have as many announcements as you want.

Due to technical reasons however, we only allow for 10 active (concurrent) announcements. This means, you could have 1000 total announcements, but only 10 of them can be actively shown to users.

Not yet, but that's coming very soon.

Not yet. It is something on our roadmap however.

Not yet. It is something on our roadmap however.

You can install the app directly from your Confluence Cloud instance by visiting the "Apps" page, and searching for "Simple Announcements" in the "Find new Apps" screen.

Once installed, you're immediately ready to go, and can create new Announcements without any other extra configuration or changes needed to Confluence.

Atlassian provides customers with a Sandbox Confluence Cloud instance. You can install the app there for testing purposes.

Additionally, you could sign up for a new Confluence Cloud evaluation, and install it there as well to test out things.

Confluence Cloud apps are typically upgraded automatically by Atlassian whenever we make a release in the marketplace.

The exception to that is If we require additional permissions from you. In that case, you have to manually upgrade from the "Manage Apps" screen, by clicking the upgrade button, as this grants us the additional permissions we request.

You can either uninstall the app from the "Manage Apps" screen, and then reinstall from the Atlassian Marketplace.

Uninstalling the app keeps your Templates in tact, until your subscription expires. Thus, if you reinstall the app after uninstalling it, your data will come right back.

When you uninstall we hold on to your data until your subscription expires.

Once your subscription (or evaluation) is marked as expired or cancelled, we delete your data within 7 days

Announcement data is stored in our infrastructure, outside of Confluence Cloud. We encrypt all data at rest, and backup our data daily.

Stored data includes the actual announcements themselves, as well as read receipts for which user has acknlowedged an announcement.

Not exactly. While there is an internal API that the app uses, the authentication mechanism is based on how Confluence Cloud communicates with external apps, which does not allow customers like you to easily call this API.

We are investigating adding alternative authentication mechanisms, to allow custoemrs to call our API, and thus gain the ability to create (or retrieve) announcements outside of the Confluence UI.

Not yet. We're actively investigating ways to allow custoemrs to call our API, and thus gain the ability to create (or retrieve) announcements outside of the Confluence UI.

Once implemented, this should allow you to create announcements based on outside data like an OpsGenie alert, or a calendar event, etc.

Currently there is no way for you to backup (or export) your announcements. We do however run daily backups, to hedge against catastrophic failure.